1. Twilight Incoming
“When the forest grows quiet, it is because something is listening.”
— Canterton survival saying
Antony had spent his day thinking a lot about his life.
Nothing in particular, and yet about everything great or small. He landed on one overarching truth of his time spent back down in Canterton Valley.
If nothing else, this trip had given him back a lot of what he had been missing. Missing pieces of himself in his outlook on life, his opinions of his Packmates versus the truly cold cut of those beyond his little four walls up in the mountain.
His appreciation for what he did have, in other words, had skyrocketed to new levels. Overall, this trip had given him back the gift of reconnection. He was leaving with new friends, old friends he had thought long dead in this world, and a deeper understanding and love for the inner creature that tried like hell to keep them both upright, mobile, and alive, nestled deep in his body.
He left his tent and whispered, “We got this. We’re going to make it just fine, and maybe, maybe it’ll be an easy enough thing, right?”
They both knew it was a pipedream, but he told him and his wolf that the whole, dragging, painful walk down the track.
He barely noticed other bodies around him. Fires had started back up in earnest, bonfires were raging with the replenishment of felled trees, and the volume level as the sun began its descent behind the mountain was rich, cackling, and chittering in the night from all sides of the camp.
The boys were out in droves; every walkway was jam-packed with people moving back and forth to other destinations, loitering in their camps in large numbers.
Antony felt almost unnoticed in the crush of it. He drifted through like a phantom, or maybe he was just feeling a little staticky, maybe shocky or something, but for once, no one looked at him with roaring horror. No got out the pitchforks and torches to come at him like a Frankenstein monster. It was almost peaceful beyond the dragging horror of his body in the cold weather.
That wasn’t pleasant, but then, it never was.
He had been so nervous that day he hadn’t really been able to hold anything down, but suddenly he was starving and felt like he should have eaten to keep his strength up or something, and supposed it was a little too late now.
He made River Run’s camp in what felt like record time and saw Aiden and, surprisingly, River, standing together talking, clearly waiting for him a few paces off.
It gave him pause to see them together. In the few days since they had been connected, Antony could almost see the tightening of their energies intertwined. It was in the close body language, the graze of the hand petting over Aiden’s back while they waited in the cold, even in the shine in Aiden's hazel eyes when he looked at River. Surely he was already a very, very claimed creature in this life, whether he knew it or not.
They looked amazing together, and it made Antony a tiny bit wistful, but also very happy to see on his friend's behalf.
Unlike Ezra, who had always just rocketed forward and taken every shot he had ever wanted to take, Aiden had always been more selective and very skeptical of the people he pursued; he usually made it about a day before either brushing it off or recognizing it as something he wasn’t into.
He couldn’t have said much about the man’s time spent over the last three years or anything, but Antony couldn’t imagine a time in which Aiden would have just flipped the script and started hopping into any and every random bed. He was too emotionally geared, too sensitive to run that kind of gauntlet, so seeing him so visibly comfortable with another person under those claiming hands made Antony thrilled for his luck.
Sure as God knew, Antony wasn’t blind; River was hands down the best-looking man he had ever put eyes on. It wasn’t even a matter of opinion. The dude was rocking on another level of human genetic coding, and it was one of those things that was hard to deny or say, yeah but…
Pretty clear cut, the man was just a beautiful creation of the world, and yet, Antony knew pretty faces had never once swayed Aiden.
In fact, he remembered back in the day the guy getting all hot and bothered over some other kid they had all crossed paths with, one that Ezra had mercilessly poked fun at him for months about.
The guy had been built like a brick, literally, almost squared off in shape and height, three inches shorter, and Ezra had accused him of already balding before the age of twenty. His nose had been broken in the past in a manner that had sent it askew, and he had been freckled on a new level of freckling. Truly, he had looked like a less hairy caveman, but Aiden had just laughed, spread his hands helplessly, and said, “I can’t help it. He’s funny and makes me laugh all the time.”
Sometimes it wasn’t about the package, but rather the contents therein.
So, happy accident that River was a fucking stacked ass smoke show on a new level of achievement, but Antony would have been shocked to find out that was the reason Aiden had given River the time of day.
Couldn’t hurt, though.
He pressed forward toward them both, and when Aiden spotted him, those eyes all but melted. Antony had never felt so guilty in his life, seeing that concerned, genuine expression, having ever spent a moment of his past resenting this man. All of Rowan and that drama aside, now in his life, he knew that had only been some serious teenage angst-fueled malarkey on his end, and he was grateful for the opportunity to have that friendship back. He really was.
He smiled for the first time in hours up at him and accepted both handshakes. “Hi. Thanks for coming along.” He glanced at River. “I’m surprised to see you again.” He admitted.
River shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, well, I figured…” He sort of nodded for Aiden, and Antony wasn’t offended.
It was a very wolfy type of thing to attach and cling to your selected lover, that was for damn sure. Antony was positive that Aiden in distress had prompted his coming along. Clearly, their relationship was going to be a set-in-stone thing, of that he was sure.
“…More hands don’t hurt.” River smiled kindly, though, and Antony felt that flutter of nervous fear hit, battered it down, and was grateful when Aiden offered him a bright smile, eyes a little too big.
“I’ll be right there for you. If anything goes wrong, I’ll do my best to help, okay?” He patted his little medicine bag slung over his shoulder pointedly.
Antony nodded a little too quickly, looked back up at River’s mild eyes, and assumed Aiden had told the man all about it. He wished he could have offered more explanation or told them details of what to expect, but frankly, he had nothing in that regard.
He didn’t know what was coming and would have really liked to know all of that himself, honestly.
But, here they all were, at their destination, and the time was surely now or never.
He felt that to the core of himself, and took the opportunity when Aiden offered him a supporting arm, leaned heavily on the man, and fell into step with both other men while they made the plunge into River Run’s very busy little community.
There were only two days left of the Convergence, but surely, he felt like his timer was winding down for it all.
He looked up, saw the slide of the harvest moon graze into sight between a rapid drift of thick darkening cloud cover, felt his chest constrict, and hoped to God above that he was alive to see the sunrise.
Either way, he supposed, it wouldn’t really matter on his end. Either he’d be alive to see it, or be dead and not care.
Wasn’t it always the way?
